Appeals court confirms: Gallagher off the case

The Hail Mary pass thrown by three special prosecutors in the Ken Paxton case has fallen to the ground, far short of the end zone.

With a one-sentence notice, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals notified the attorneys involved in the criminal case against Attorney General Paxton Wednesday that they wouldn’t be putting District Judge George Gallagher back on the case.

Last week, the Fifth District Court of Appeals in Dallas ordered Gallagher off the case, telling him to rescind all orders he had issued since transferring the case to Harris County against Paxton’s wishes.

The Court of Appeals did give Gallagher the opportunity to follow the law on his own, without the formal shame of an order, but warned him that a formal order known as a writ of mandamus would follow if he failed to do so.

The three attorneys prosecuting Paxton – Brian Wice, Kent Schaffer, and Nicole DeBorde – filed a 160-page document last week asking the Court of Criminal Appeals for permission to challenge the decision.

Jon Cassidy is a reporter for The Texas Monitor and a contributing editor for The American Spectator. He has been an investigative reporter for Watchdog.org and an editor and reporter for The Orange County Register. His work has also appeared in The Wall Street Journal, City Journal, The Federalist, Fox News, Chronicles, Reason, and other publications. He was a 2014 Robert Novak Journalism Fellow, and is a graduate of the University of Southern California. He and his wife Michelle live just outside Houston with their two children.